Social Media is all the rage these days. There is Twitter, Facebook, Digg, YouTube, MySpace, StumbleUpon, and the list goes on. But aren’t those social networks really just for teens that want to let us know about the latest boy band they like or to share with the world who they are going to prom with? Well, sure Twitter and Facebook can be misused for that, OR it can be a powerful tool to increase perception of a brand, to share and retrieve information, and to connect with people that may not be possible because of geographic boundaries.

What About Using it for Business?

Using Twitter for business is a great idea. No wait, a mandatory idea. What, your not using Twitter! Well, let me bring you up to speed of what you are missing out on: Everything! You see, social media platforms like Twitter will give your business an opportunity to give your business some real-time market intelligence and customer feedback that can catapult your brand, reaching hundreds of thousands of people with the least amount of resistances and resources on your part.

Back Up, What is Twitter?

Twitter is a powerful social media tool that is based on status updates consisting of 140 characters or less. According to the official Twitter website, they explain it like this:

Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now. Twitter asks “what’s happening” and makes the answer spread across the globe to millions, immediately….lets you build relationships with customers, partners and other people important to your business.

Use Twitter for Relationship Marketing

Twitter gives you an opportunity to connect with your clients and to build authentic relationships. These types of relationships can help your business as you transform from product based marketing into the relationship marketing that helps to build brand loyalty.

You see, we all buy products and services. Think about the last movie you saw. A couple of days before you went and saw it, you saw a great promo of it on tv or a YouTube clip that caught your interest. But, it wasn’t until your friend went and saw it the night before and claimed it was the greatest thing next to sliced bread that you made the decision to purchase! Sure the commercial was cool, but it was your friends recommendation and the relationship that you have with them that sold the ticket.

Twitter can help you build those types of relationship with your clients and business partners because you will be able to connect with them, learn more about them, and likewise they will learn more about you and your company. And this can be done on their terms in a more relaxed and casual environment.

Twitter Can Get Your Name Out There

Twitter is a powerful marketing tool and the messages that are created can reach millions of people. Wow, that’s a big number. With your current marketing campaigns of newsletters, direct mail pieces and maybe a radio spot, how many clients are you reaching? Now, don’t get me wrong, email marketing and traditional marketing are also important so don’t shelf your traditional marketing. What I am saying is that Twitter can potentially reach a far greater audience and can be marketing tool to help you manage your online image. The power of Twitter is in duplication. Twitter has a built in function that if one of its users gets and update of information they like, they are able to “retweet” it and send it out again to all the people that follow them. This becomes viral and your original tweet may be seen, well, by the entire known world…or at least those that use Twitter (and haven’t been in some cave for the last couple of years).

Get Started with Social Media Relationship Marketing

Over the next several days, we are going to look at how we can use this powerful social media relationship marketing tool can be used to market and build your brand. We will also be looking at several Twitter tools to help you communicate and manage your updates. For those that haven’t done it yet, head over to Twitter and get your own account and get ready to start building your social marketing campaign.

comments | 491(1 comment)http://blog.mosaicteam.com/why-your-business-cant-afford-to-ignore-twitterWhy+Your+Business+can%27t+afford+to+Ignore+Twitter2010-07-29+22%3A30%3A23dnnsldrtags |client relationshipsinformation sharingsocial marketingsocial media